I didn’t post a blog entry last week; it was my short week and didn’t have the extra desk time to put something together.  By short week I mean 4 working days and a Friday off.  Many County office workers have a flexible or 9/80 schedule, which is great because you can choose to take every other Friday off. 

I myself walk around town 9/80 Fridays pretending that I don’t have to work for a living.  Even my casual attire for these days screams self-indulgent lollygagger, as I sip my Latte sitting in front of the downtown Palm Springs Starbucks.

I was putting in a lot of commute time last week; Wednesday and Thursday were trips into Riverside for (manager hosted) holiday celebration breakfasts.  That was just the beginning of several coincidences which were to follow.  Independently planned, both of the breakfasts took place at Coco’s in Riverside.  Each day at 7:30 a.m., I ordered the very same breakfast (not so much a coincidence, as a safe choice). 

Thursday the workgroup I am part of went back to the office after breakfast for a gift exchange.  It was one of those games where you can steal a previously opened gift or unwrap one yourself.  How you got the strategic honor of going first was to guess correctly the adult coworkers that matched each of the pictures of young children.  Everyone had brought a picture in and they were now numbered and mounted on a board for the contest.  There I was in a bowtie for my first grade picture.  This I recall was a different bowtie than the one I wore in the Kindergarten Health Play. 

You will never guess what I opened up, a box of See’s lollypops (kinda goes along with the whole lollygagger image) along with (can you believe it) a Starbucks gift card.  A short distance down, on the other side of the street, if you are sitting at Starbucks you can spot the See’s in downtown Palm Springs.  Was that a coincidence or what?

Well anyway, I went to use my gift card over the weekend.  Handing the Barista my card, I was about to conversationally explain that I had got it with See’s lollypops in a gift exchange.  But then out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the young man behind me in ling wearing (you guessed it…) a See’s Candy salesclerk uniform. 

I reconsidered offering that particular explanation, because surely to everyone in ear shot it would have seemed as though I was some kind of kook making it up on the spot. 

For anyone having trouble picking out the last coincidence, it is not blogging and making it up as I go along.